WASHINGTON — More than two months after Obamacare’s ugly debut, the number of Americans using the system is starting to grow: Nearly 1.2 million people are on track to have health coverage in place next year from the law’s health insurance exchanges, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday.

From Oct. 1 through Nov. 30, almost 365,000 people enrolled into private health insurance via the federal and state marketplaces and more than 803,000 were deemed eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program, according to the department.

The federally run exchanges in more than 30 states accounted for 137,000 of the enrollments in private coverage, and the remaining states signed up 227,000. About 1.9 million more people had been determined eligible for coverage through the marketplaces, but hadn’t yet chosen a health plan. The new data don’t include an apparent flurry of enrollments in the early days of December.

HealthCare.gov, the federal portal to health coverage in more than 30 states, still has problems, but appears to doing what it’s supposed to do: enabling consumers to do shop and sign up for health benefits for next year.

Eric Rawlings, 42, of Decatur, Ga., breezed through HealthCare.gov in about 10 minutes to enroll in a private health plan for himself and his infant daughter in late November, he told The Huffington Post.

“Everybody talks about how horrible this website is and all the glitches and stuff, but I tell you, it was the best experience I ever had shopping for insurance,” said Rawlings, who owns an architectural design firm. Rawlings chose the highest level of coverage, a Platinum plan that includes dental benefits, for $550 a month, or about $50 more than he pays for a medical-only policy for just himself this year. He earns too much to qualify for tax credits to reduce his premiums.

Rawlings has been buying his own health insurance since starting his own business more than a decade ago and didn’t miss having to disclose his medical history and wait weeks for an approval — or rejection. Nor did he yearn for paying higher rates because of a pre-existing condition he has, he said. “I have just been waiting for the Affordable Care Act to kick in,” he said.

“We have every reason to believe that interest will continue to grow and enrollment numbers will continue to rise,” Michael Hash, the director of the Office of Health Reform at the Department of Health and Human Services, said during a conference call with reporters Tuesday. “We think we’re on track and we will reach the total that we thought.” The bulk of those sign-ups will come near the end of the six-month enrollment period, he said.

Significant challenges remain if that prediction is to come true. HealthCare.gov and exchange websites in states like Oregon and Maryland continue to suffer performance issues, despite improvements. Health insurance companies and states report receiving incomplete, inaccurate or non-existent enrollment files about would-be enrollees. And consumers, including those whose current policies were canceled because they don’t meet Affordable Care Act standards, have less than two weeks left to sign up for coverage that will be in place on Jan. 1.

“We invite those Americans whose experience with HealthCare.gov have been frustrating to them so far to come back and try again. The HealthCare.gov website is night and day from where it was on Oct. 1,” Hash said.

In contrast to November and December, national enrollment into private insurance in October was just 106,000 — only 27,000 of which came from the federal system — and 396,000 were determined eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program. The report issued Wednesday includes enrollments for both October and November and reflects a nearly fourfold increase in enrollments via the federal exchanges in the second month compared with the first.

Obamacare’s prospects will depend heavily on whether the negative experiences of people in those situations outnumber or overwhelm those of individuals who feel better off because of the law, like Kelly Wilson of New Orleans.

After struggling with HealthCare.gov at first, Wilson, 39, signed herself up for a subsidized private health plan and enrolled her kids, 3 and 7, into Medicaid for medical and dental benefits on Dec. 1, Wilson, a college professor who has worked part time to take care of her children since her husband died in 2011, told HuffPost via email. This year, Wilson’s plan costs $438 a month, she said. Next year, she will pay $219 a month, after $114 in tax credits, for a Silver plan with a lower deductible and dental coverage.

“As a young widow with two young children, I’m very relieved,” Wilson wrote.

One month into the rollout of Obamacare, 106,185 people had chosen a private health insurance plan using the health care reform law’s troubled exchanges, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Wednesday, the first time the Obama administration has given enrollment figures.

“With the issues we’ve had, these marketplaces are working and people are enrolling,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said during a conference call with reporters Wednesday. “We can reasonably expect that these numbers will grow substantially over the next five months.”

Some 26,794 people who have selected a health plan did so via the federally run insurance exchanges, compared to the more than 79,000 who used the exchanges in the 15 states and the District of Columbia that are operating their own marketplaces, according to the HHS report, which spans the period from Oct. 1 to Nov. 2.

Not all of the more than 100,000 people tallied by the administration have taken the final necessary step and actually made the first payment for their coverage, which begins in January, the report indicates. The Department of Health and Human Services doesn’t have accurate data on how many people made payments to insurers, which aren’t due until Dec. 15, Sebelius said.

An additional 975,407 people have completed the application to determine whether they can receive subsidies and now have only to choose a health plan, the report says. More than 396,000 people using the exchanges have been deemed eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Plan.

The administration continues to plead for patience, emphasizing that the enrollment period doesn’t end for more than four months. “This data represents only a month into a sustained six-month enrollment and outreach effort and we’re confident that, as more people across the country learn about their new options, more people will find a plan that meets their needs and their budget and more will enroll in coverage,” Sebelius said.

“We’re well ahead of the pace that was set by Massachusetts, so there’s not cause for concern with these particular numbers,” Don Mould, HHS assistant secretary for planning and evaluation, said during the conference call.

Although the Massachusetts health reform program and Medicare Part D also suffered from balky rollouts, the troubles besetting HealthCare.gov and some state exchanges appear more serious. On top of technical glitches, the political firestorm is more intense this time, raising questions about whether the administration can make up for lost time.

“The early experience of HealthCare.gov was enormously frustrating. It is getting better. It’s getting better every day, so I’d urge people to visit the site,” Sebelius said.

The White House sought to get 500,000 people enrolled in private insurance via the federal and state exchanges by the end of October, according to an internal document cited by the Associated Press that the administration has never confirmed. By the end of this month, the target is 800,000 people, including Medicaid enrollees, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner told a congressional committee last week.

Although people could use alternate means to buy health insurance, such as paper applications and the telephone hotlines for the exchanges, these methods have significant shortcomings. Health insurance tax credits for people who earn between the poverty level and four times that amount — up to about $46,000 for a single person — only are available via the exchanges. And the only way to compare every plan sold in a local area side by side is to visit an exchange website.

The contrast between the states with well-functioning enrollment systems and those relying on HealthCare.gov is stark. More individuals in California, the most populous state and home to the most uninsured people, have chosen a plan than in all the states with federally run marketplaces combined, the report shows. The number of Californians who got that far is more than 12 times higher than in Texas, the state with the second-largest population and number of uninsured. In five of states using HealthCare.gov — Alaska, Delaware, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming — fewer than 100 people have selected insurance.

The raw numbers of people getting private insurance on the exchanges in each state arguably are less important than having the right mix of healthy and sick customers, which is crucial to keeping premiums down in future years. Of the 7 million people originally projected to buy insurance on these marketplaces, the White House estimated that 2.7 million needed to be younger and healthier. HHS isn’t releasing demographic information yet about who is signing up, Sebelius said. The first enrollees were older than expected, the Wall Street Journal reported last week, citing health insurance industry sources.

Obamacare is under intensifying scrutiny on Capitol Hill, as Republicans stage a series of hearings to hammer away at the administration’s failure to launch a working web portal. They will also highlight consumers whose current health plans won’t be available next year in spite of Obama’s oft-stated promise that people wouldn’t lose their benefits because of the law.

The White House has rejected such legislation as anathema to the Affordable Care Act’s goal of reforming the health insurance market by guaranteeing a minimum level of benefits and financial protections and by keeping insurers from turning away people with pre-existing conditions. The insurance industry has also warned that such proposals could increase premiums by keeping healthy people out of the exchanges. At the same time, Obama apologized to people losing their coverage and said his administration is looking for ways to ease the transition, although he didn’t say how.

Obamacare’s first month was a mess. After nearly 40 days, HealthCare.gov still doesn’t work right, derailing health insurance sign-ups for those in the more than 30 states using the website.

But sign-up efforts in the states that aren’t using Healthcare.gov tell a different story. These 14 states and the District of Columbia decided to create their own health insurance marketplaces, and some have seen tremendous success. Others, like Maryland and Oregon, are hampered by problems like those imperiling the federally run site.

Obamacare’s fate in these states is just as uncertain as at the federal level, yet success there is crucial if the law is to take hold and thrive. Grass-roots, state-run success stories could inspire others to do more to help the law in the future, while failures could further undermine support for the entire endeavor.

Here’s a look at sign-up efforts in the states that aren’t using HealthCare.gov.

Keith Colmar, 61, already is benefitting from the Affordable Care Act. The unemployed plumber dropped his insurance last month because he couldn’t afford the $500 monthly premium. “It was either that or not make a mortgage payment,” said Colmar, who lives in Tustin, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles.

Last week, he decided to see if Covered California could help. The result: he’s getting no-cost coverage from Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. California is among the about half of states expanding Medicaid to more low-income residents. “I called the 800-number and in 20 seconds I got ahold of a human being and discussed everything,” Colmar said.

In the meantime, Martinez and the employees at her three community health centers have focused on public outreach and education efforts around health insurance and Covered California. “We have to make this boat float,” she said.

To make sure they don’t lose contact with people who want to sign up, the Community Health Alliance of Pasadena uses an iPad app that asks people five questions about their eligibility and takes down their contact information so workers can follow up. “It’s kind of like a quick hook to get them thinking about it,” Martinez said.

Connecticut

Dana Tellier is disappointed. Days before Obamacare enrollment began on Oct. 1, the 53-year-old uninsured Coventry resident emailed The Huffington Post saying the health insurance marketplace would be a “godsend.” Then she looked at the plans for herself and her husband, Doug, 50, on Access Health CT, the state’s exchange.

“The deductible was sky-high, and that’s to pay $600 a month,” Tellier said last week. “I just expected a lot less. I don’t know. He just got our hopes up, Obama.”

The Telliers, who own a tattoo and piercing shop called Moon Flower Boutique in nearby Manchester, are the sort of people the Affordable Care Act is supposed to help: Each has a pre-existing condition that resulted in denials by health insurers, and they dropped their old plan two years ago because they couldn’t afford the $1,200 monthly premium.

Even though the cheapest plan on Access Health CT is half the cost of their old coverage, Dana Tellier is turned off by the $12,700 annual deductible. “That’s not my idea of lower costs,” she said. The family earns about $68,000 a year, which is too high to qualify for subsidies.

Tellier expects they’ll take the plunge anyway, rather than risk a serious illness. “You just never know,” she said.

Washington

So far, the Washington Healthplanfinder has signed up more people than any other exchange: about 55,000 as of Monday, with a nearly equal number of applications pending. Patty Fry of Spokane became one of the enrollees last Thursday.

“I haven’t had [health insurance] for like 12 years, so when this Obamacare thing came up, I was like, ‘Yay!'” said Fry, 52, who works part-time at a call center. Fry’s husband Michael, 50, is awaiting a liver transplant and is covered by Medicare and Medicaid. Between his Social Security disability payments and her wages, the couple will earn about $10,000 this year, Patty Fry said.

She sought help from the Community Health Association of Spokane, a network of community health centers where she’s gone for medical treatment. “I was in and out of there in five minutes,” she said. Fry qualified for Washington Apple Care, the state’s Medicaid program. “It’s just a peace of mind,” she said.

Mark Secord has seen a lot of people like Fry since Oct. 1 as executive director ofNeighborcare Health, a Seattle-based chain of community health centers that employs 21 people who help patients enroll into coverage. “We have peoples’ faces lighting up every day,” he said.

Still, Secord looks at the states reliant on HealthCare.gov and is grateful to be in the Evergreen State. “It’s tough enough to make it work in a state like Washington,” he said. “I can only imagine what it’s like in the state of Texas or Missouri or some of the states that are openly antagonistic to Obamacare.”

Oregon

Oregon was supposed to be one of Obamacare’s stars. The state embraced the Affordable Care Act from the start and got national attention for its Portlandia-esque advertising campaign. But signs of trouble began to emerge this summer, when the state announced that Cover Oregon wouldn’t be ready on Oct. 1.

Anna Gorman’s frustration is boiling over and she doesn’t see any good options. Gorman, a 44-year-old Portland artist, is losing the plan she has now — which she doesn’t like — and will have to replace it with a more expensive plan — which she can’t buy since the exchange isn’t working right. “I am sure eventually ACA will be to the betterment of our society. But the implementation in Oregon has been mind-numbingly inept,” she said in an email.

Maryland

Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D) likes to talk about how his administration started getting ready the day after Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010. Technical problems with the Maryland Health Connection are cutting into that head start: As of last Friday, about 4,500 Marylanders had signed up.

At that pace, the state is going to have to adjust its expectations of enrolling up to 180,000 people during the first year of Obamacare, said Kathleen Westcoat, the CEO of HealthCare Access Maryland, a Baltimore-based organization under contract to help residents sign up.

“I don’t see how the numbers are going to work with losing essentially a month to six weeks,” she said.

Westcoat does find hope in the fact that HealthCare Access Maryland is signing up people and seeing improvements to the exchange every day. “If they’re able to fix this thing within the next couple weeks, it is a long enrollment period,” she said. The exchanges don’t close until March 31, 2014.

Kentucky

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) has become a news media fixture for makingKynect, his state’s exchange, one of the Affordable Care Act’s biggest success stories.